The universal mind is not experiencing itself directly like we experience the world but, arguably under Kastrup’s view, it is experiencing itself via us (as we are alters of that mind). — Bob Ross

So we are back to my original question:

If the nature of reality is essentially experiential does this mean that prior to experiential animals there was no reality or is this a teleological claim or has there always been something that is capable of experiencing? — Fooloso4

In response you said:

Under analytical idealism, the entirety of reality is fundamentally mind and is thusly conscious: not just animals. — Bob Ross

But now it seems that in order for there to be experience there must be us or something like us. If so, then prior in time to such animals the nature of reality could not have been experiential. There was nothing capable of experiencing.

In order for Kastrup's assertion to qualify for a theory of reality it must explain how animals like us, capable of experiencing, came to be in a universe like ours full of things to be experienced.

The argument is that we cannot account for consciousness by the reductive physicalist method ... — Bob Ross

The fact that we cannot now explain consciousness does not mean that there is not a physical explanation. This is an old story in the history of science. There have been naysayers at every step in the development of science who have argued that something cannot be done prior to it being done. Neuroscience is a relatively new science. This looks like nothing more than a sophisticated version of God of the gaps.

Science only tells us how things behave, not what they fundamentally are. — Bob Ross

According to the Standard Model of Particle Physics there are fundamental or elementary particles of matter.

I am not simply assuming the world out there is mind because I am mind: that is a bad argument. — Bob Ross

You are assuming that there is mind, but what do we know of mind that is not based on our mind? You are arguing that our consciousness cannot be explained unless consciousness is fundamental and irreducible.

What do you mean? My point is that we use reason to infer, based off of experience, things which are not a part of our experience (and this is perfectly valid). — Bob Ross

Based off of our experience you infer that reality is essentially experiential. Like from like. Put differently, based off the human mind you infer that there is mind itself.

Analytical idealism is not the best theory simply because it is a reductive methodololgical approach — Bob Ross

Your claim was:

It is the best metaphysical theory I have heard (so far) for what reality fundamentally is. — Bob Ross

There is nothing in reality that necessitates substance monism; however, the best theories are the one’s that use occam’s razor: otherwise, theories explode into triviality. — Bob Ross

The best theories do not misuse Occam's razor. Monism is not better than dualism or pluralism simply because it seems simpler to have one thing rather than many. Unless the theory can explain the whole of reality in terms of this one thing then Occam's razor does not apply.

It may be that sooner or later we run up against the limits of human knowledge. It may be that the deeper we dig the more there is to find. This is not trivial.

I think we can know things without directly experiencing them. — Bob Ross

The claim that:

... the universe is experiential in essence.

is not something we can experience but it is also not something we know. Whether it is something that can be known is questionable.

The problem with your argument is that it assumes you can get outside your understanding of the world to see it as it truly is, without any observer. — Wayfarer

This is why I asked about the "something" that has always been capable of observing.

If it is true that we cannot get outside our understanding of the world, then this extends to our understanding of a disembodied observer.

Kastrup would say that our perception is simply representing the world as if it was a certain way. The physical world is representation, not the thing itself. — schopenhauer1

I would say that the physical world is represented. It is not the thing itself, but both what is represented and experience are of something.

Is the assumption that there is something that is experienced and something that is represented mistaken?

Descartes gets his "clear and distinct ideas" from his work in optics, — Manuel

Interesting observation, but how well does it fit with his example of the wax? For example:

When the wax is in front of us, we say that we see it, not that we judge it to be there from its colour or shape; and this might make me think that knowledge of the wax comes from what the eye sees rather than from the perception of the mind alone. But this is clearly wrong, as the following example shows.

...

If I look out of the window and see men crossing the square, as I have just done, I say that I see the men themselves, just as I say that I see the wax; yet do I see any more than hats and coats that could conceal robots? I judge that they are men.


...

Surely, I am aware of my own self in a truer and more certain way than I am of the wax, and also in a much more distinct and evident way.

...

As I came to perceive the wax more distinctly by applying not just sight and touch but other considerations, all this too contributed to my knowing myself even more distinctly, because whatever goes into my perception of the wax or of any other body must do even more to establish the nature of my own mind.

Also, I don't think his conflation of affective states with thinking helps to clarify anything. — Janus

This should be looked at against the background of the tradition he is rejecting. Aristotle regarded such things as being related to the soul, but since Descartes regards the soul as a thinking thing these activities are classified as kinds of thinking.

until you begin to ask the further questions as to just what this entity is, if it is claimed to be anything more than the whole organism. — Janus

Yes, I agree. He will have more to say about the whole organism. But I don't think a full description or complete knowledge of himself is his main concern. He says enough to serve his rhetorical purpose.

Unless what he means by "perceives clearly and distinctly" is mental events of all kinds. — frank

There is a shift in this paragraph from the certainty of being a thinking thing that perceives to the certainty of "whatever" it is that he perceives clearly and distinctly.

Things are manifestations of experience?
— Fooloso4

Yes — schopenhauer1

Can you explain how that works?

It isn't evident that everything is made of a couple dozen whizzing particles, but here we are. — schopenhauer1

We have, however, made considerable progress in explaining things physically. The claim that things are experience (esse est percipi?) does not explain anything. Where do we go from there? How do we distinguish between experiences? Is the dream of getting hit by a train as real as getting hit by a train? Will the dream train get me where I need to go?

So, to answer your question, there was a reality before any animals (as science suggests). — Bob Ross

Does science suggest that there was mind experiencing itself experiencing? Or that there is something experienced that is not experience? That there is a difference between experience and what is experienced?

Given our limited experience how can we move beyond our experience to something prior to it?

I am not sure I am completely following ... — Bob Ross

There is a logical leap from our being experiential to the universe being experiential. We have no experience of the experience of the universe or of it being experiential. It seems to be a form of anthropomorphism. The ancient assumption of like to like. Microcosm and macrocosm.

The universe is like us. We have mind, therefore the universe has mind. We have experience therefore the universe has experience.

What do we know of subjectivity beyond the personal and interpersonal?

A lot. I can reasonably infer that I was born and before that my mother and father existed (for example). — Bob Ross

This is still within the world of human experience.

It is the best metaphysical theory I have heard (so far) for what reality fundamentally is ... it posits that we should reduce everything fundamentally to mind — Bob Ross

It is the best because the best theory must be reductive? That there must be a single something that is fundamental? That we are left with either something mental or physical?

and claims that we can do so while adequately fitting the data of experience. — Bob Ross

See my comment above regarding experience. We have no experience of something fundamental. That there must be something fundamental is merely an assumption that rests fundamentally on our desire that the universe to be intelligible to us. And so we give it limits, a starting point, a terminus, to fit our limits.

It is one method of answering the hard problem without going into granularity. — schopenhauer1

I don't see it as an answer but as a bald assertion without sufficient evidence.

But plenum of experience with which things are manifestations becomes more interesting — schopenhauer1

Things are manifestations of experience? Experience of what? Experience? Mind? It is evident that things that have mind have experience but it is not evident that what they experience is mind or experience and not things.

According to Kastrup's Essentia website

Analytic Idealism is a theory of the nature of reality that maintains that the universe is experiential in essence.

If the nature of reality is essentially experiential does this mean that prior to experiential animals there was no reality or is this a teleological claim or has there always been something that is capable of experiencing?

Given our limited experience how can we move beyond our experience to something prior to it? Kastrup claims:

That does not mean that reality is in your or our individual minds alone, but instead in a spatially unbound, transpersonal field of subjectivity of which we are segments.

What do we know of subjectivity beyond the personal and interpersonal?

The claim is made that:

... the notion that nature is essentially mental—is the best explanatory model we currently have.

Is it? In what way is this claim an explanation? Does it merely assert the very thing it is to explain?

The tight connection between 'not knowing' and being 'unimaginable' is sort of a concession to Aristotle saying, "thinking requires the use of images." — Paine

As quoted from the third meditation in my response to Janus, he distinguishes between thoughts that are images and others that are:

something more than merely the likeness of that thing.

When, for example, I will or am afraid, this is not the likeness of willing or being afraid. It is not something I imagine. I can, of course, imagine what it is like to be afraid, but when I do so I rely on a memory or feeling of when I was afraid.

Does reason give us a clear and distinct idea of the "I"? — Janus

He does say:

...what is true and known – namely my own self.

Are you saying he does not think it does or that you do not think it does? In the third meditation he says:

I am a thing that thinks, i.e., that doubts, affirms, denies, understands some things, is ignorant of many others, wills, and refuses. This thing also imagines and has sensory perceptions ... That lists everything that I truly know, or at least everything I have, up to now, discovered that I know. Now I will look more carefully to see whether I have overlooked other facts about myself.

In what follows there are a few other things he mentions. His continued existence does not depend on himself, that he is finite, and that he has innate ideas.

He goes on to make a distinction between kinds of thoughts. Some are ideas - images or pictures of things, and others are such things as volitions, emotions, and judgments:

First, if I am to proceed in an orderly way I should classify my thoughts into definite kinds, and ask which kinds can properly be said to be true or false. Some of my thoughts are, so to speak, images or pictures of things – as when I think of a man, or a chimera, or the sky, or an angel, or God – and strictly speaking these are the only thoughts that should be called ‘ideas’.

Other thoughts have more to them than that: for example when I will, or am afraid, or affirm, or deny, my thought represents some particular thing but it also includes something more than merely the likeness of that thing. Some thoughts in this category are called volitions or emotions, while others are called judgments.

Seeing the act of thinking as a list of activities does not reflect the problem of description that I commented upon upthread. By speaking of an 'indescribable part of myself which cannot be pictured by the imagination', it seems to me that Descartes is pointing at something that is always there but is not understood. — Paine

Here is John Cottingham's translation of this passage:

But I still can’t help thinking that bodies – of which I form mental images and which the senses investigate – are much more clearly known to me than is this puzzling ‘I’ that can’t be pictured in the imagination. It would be surprising if this were right, though; for it would be surprising if I had a clearer grasp of things that I realize are doubtful, unknown and foreign to me – ·namely, bodies – than I have of what is true and known – namely my own self. But I see what the trouble is: I keep drifting towards that error because my mind likes to wander freely, refusing to respect the boundaries that truth lays down.

According to this translation it is not some mysterious part of himself, but the 'I' itself. Why does he say it can't be pictured in the imagination. I think it because the imagination will not give us a clear and distinct idea of the 'I'. But reason does.

Both translations are in agreement with regard to the formation of mental images of bodies.

Descartes was not sharply separating the domain of Reason as Kant did from the nature of things as they are in themselves. — Paine

Good point. In the second meditation Descartes says:

Rather, it is purely a perception by the mind alone – formerly an imperfect and confused one, but now clear and distinct because I am now concentrating carefully on what the wax consists in.

The "clear and distinct" perception of the wax is the result of reason. What is perceived is the wax's nature, as it is, not simply as it appears to us.

Two issues that Descartes will return to are introduced here. The first is the faculty of judgment:

Something that I thought I saw with my eyes, therefore, was really grasped solely by my mind’s faculty of judgment.

The second is the dependability of what is "clear and distinct".

For Descartes the faculty of judgment is concerned with the question of whether things are as they are perceived to be, or more radically, whether they are at all outside the mind. But since we cannot make this comparison the problem of modern skepticism arises. It is here that "clear and distinct" ideas play a central role. Kant accepts the existence of things outside the mind, but rejects the question of their nature, that is, what they are in themselves.

Maybe the thinking here is not a determination as it is often portrayed to be. — Paine

Can you explain what you mean?

So, we rely on reason to gain knowledge, but then what is reason? — Manuel

For Descartes mathematics is the model of reason. Just as in mathematics, if one does not mistake a mistake then everyone, whatever their beliefs and opinions may be, will arrive at the same conclusion.

It's not so clear to me that the imagination must be nature be misleading. — Manuel

It is not that it must be misleading by nature, but that like the senses it can be misleading. It is not, by itself, a reliable source of knowledge.

Contrary to Aristotle, Descartes claims that we do not see things is the world, but rather representations in the mind.

This leads to the problem of judgment, of whether the things we perceive accurately represent the things they are perceptions of.

Note how often he uses the term 'imagine' in the second meditation:

Starting with the soul he says:

If I gave any thought to what this soul was like, I imagined it to be something thin and filmy– like a wind or fire or ether – permeating my more solid parts.

He goes on to say a few paragraphs later:

I am not that structure of limbs and organs that is called a human body; nor am I a thin vapour that permeates the limbs – a wind, fire, air, breath, or whatever I imagine ...

This can be read either as:
1) the soul is not as I imagined it to be
2) I only imagine I have a soul

He continues the sentence:

... for I have supposed all these things to be nothing because I have supposed all bodies to be nothing.

That he is not or does not have a body is something that he supposes for the sake of his meditation. Put differently, that he does not have a body is subject to doubt.

Compare the following statements:

That makes imagination suspect, for while I know for sure that I exist, I know that everything relating to the nature of body – including imagination – could be mere dreams; so it would be silly for me to say ‘I will use my imagination to get a clearer understanding of what I am’ ...

Well, then, what am I? A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that doubts, understands, affirms, denies, wants, refuses, and also imagines and senses.

He is a thing that imagines:

But the ‘I’ who imagines is also this same ‘I’. For even if (as I am pretending) none of the things that I imagine really exist, I really do imagine them, and this is part of my thinking.

That he imagines cannot be doubted, but what he imagines can be. He says that imagination is related to the nature of body, but also that to imagine is to think.

The same holds for sensing:

I certainly seem to see, to hear, and to be warmed. This cannot be false; what is called ‘sensing’ is strictly just this seeming, and when ‘sensing’ is understood in this restricted sense of the word it too is simply thinking.

On the positive side he is certain that he exists, certain that he thinks, and imagines, and senses. On the negative side, just as what he imagines and senses can be called into doubt, so too can what he thinks, for they are all part of his thinking. If what he thinks can be doubted, if even what he doubts can be doubted, is he then hopelessly lost is doubt? Will his certainty that he exists be sufficient to serve as his Archimedean point?

We should not overlook the following from the first paragraph of the second meditation:

Archimedes said that if he had one firm and immovable point he could lift the world ·with a long enough lever·; so I too can hope for great things if I manage to find just one little thing that is solid and certain.

The task of finding something that is certain is not simply a matter of Descartes finding something he can be certain of, that is, of alleviating his doubts. The one thing that is solid and certain will function as an Archimedean fulcrum with which he will reestablish the world on a new basis. The authority of the thinking I will displace that of Aristotle, "the Philosopher", and the Church.

Was reading over your conversation with Antony, and it is very interesting, and very much echoes Chomsky's interpretation of Descartes, which is that The Meditations were written, in a sense, so his physics would be taken seriously. — Manuel

In the thread "Philosophy is for questioning religion" the topic of esoteric philosophical writing came up. I quoted something from Descartes. This one below is more relevant to his physics:

In a letter to Mersenne, Descartes reveals:

...there are many other things in them; and I tell you, between ourselves, that these
six Meditations contain all the foundations of my physics. But that must not be
spread abroad, if you please; for those who follow Aristotle will find it more
difficult to approve them. I hope that [my readers] will accustom themselves
insensibly to my principles, and will come to recognize their truth, before
perceiving that they destroy those of Aristotle.
– René Descartes to Mersenne, January 28, 1641, Œuvres de Descartes,
3:297–98, quoted and translated by Hiram Caton in The Origin of
Subjectivity, 17

Quoted from here

it seems to me that Descartes was quite confident that we are thinking things, so I do not think he would let go of the notion of the immortality of the soul. — Manuel

The title of the first edition was " Meditations on First Philosophy in Which the Existence of God and the Immortality of the Soul Are Demonstrated". But the second edition, (the text cited in this thread) is "Meditations on First Philosophy in which are demonstrated the existence of God and the distinction between the human soul and the body". There is no mention of an immortal soul.

In the third meditation he says:

For a life-span can be divided into countless parts, each completely independent of the others, so that from my existing at one time it doesn’t follow that I exist at later times, unless some cause keeps me in existence – one might say that it creates me afresh at each moment.

In other words, the human soul is a created or contingent, or dependent substance. The continued existence of the soul depends on God.

Given your experience with the texts and Descartes, if you had to guess or even form a hypothesis, what interpretation would you lean in on? — Manuel

I am going to hold off on that until we have read more of the text.

There is an online appendix to Meltzer's Philosophy Between the Lines that consists of quotes, both ancient and modern, by and about philosophers.

The term has been used in different ways, but for a better idea of how it has been used in the western philosophical tradition. In simplest terms it means to appear to be saying one thing while saying another.

There are many quotes from and about the ancients, but it is not a practice that was limited to them.

Since there are a couple of current thread on Descartes I'll start with him:

Descartes writes to one of his more imprudent disciples:

Do not propose new opinions as new, but retain all the old terminology for
supporting new reasons; that way no one can find fault with you, and those who
grasp your reasons will by themselves conclude to what they ought to understand.
Why is it necessary for you to reject so openly the [Aristotelian doctrine of]
substantial forms? Do you not recall that in the Treatise on Meteors I expressly
denied that I rejected or denied them, but declared only that they were not
necessary for the explication of my reasons?
– René Descartes to Regius, January, 1642, Œuvres de Descartes, 3:491-
92, quoted and translated by Hiram Caton in “The Problem of Descartes’
Sincerity,” 363

David Hume (1711-1776):
[T]hough the philosophical truth of any proposition, by no means depends on its tendency
to promote the interests of society, yet a man has but a bad grace, who delivers a theory,
however true, which he must confess leads to a practice dangerous and pernicious. Why
rake into those corners of nature which spread a nuisance all around? Why dig up the
pestilence from the pit in which it is buried? The ingenuity of your researches may be
admired but your systems will be detested, and mankind will agree, if they cannot refute
them, to sink them at least in eternal silence and oblivion. Truths which are pernicious to
society, if any such there be, will yield to errors which are salutary and advantageous.
– David Hume, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 257-58 (9.2)
(emphasis in the original)

Encyclopedia of Diderot and d’Alembert (1751-1772):

EXOTERIC and ESOTERIC, adj. (History of Philosophy): The first of these words
signifies exterior, the second, interior. The ancient philosophers had a double doctrine;
the one external, public or exoteric; the other internal, secret or esoteric.
– “Exoteric and Esoteric,” Encyclopedia (translation mine)

[T]he condition of the sage is very dangerous: there is hardly a nation that is not soiled
with the blood of several of those who have professed it. What should one do then?
Must one be senseless among the senseless? No; but one must be wise in secret.
– Denis Diderot, “Pythagorism or Philosophy of Pythagoras,” Encyclopedia

The Encyclopedia not only frequently speaks of esotericism–and approvingly–but it also
practices it, as becomes clear from a letter of d’Alembert to Voltaire. The latter had been
complaining to d’Alembert about the timidity of some of the articles. He replies:
No doubt we have some bad articles in theology and metaphysics, but with
theologians as censors... I defy you to make them better. There are other articles,
less open to the light, where all is repaired. Time will enable people to
distinguish what we have thought from what we have said.
– Jean d’Alembert to Denis Diderot, July 21, 1757, Œuvres et
correspondances, 5:51 (translation mine; emphasis added)

Just what this means, Diderot makes clear in his article titled “Encyclopedia.” He is speaking
about the use of cross-references in the articles. This can be useful, he explains, to link articles on common subjects enabling their ideas to reinforce and build upon one another.
When it is necessary, [the cross-references] will also produce a completely
opposite effect: they will counter notions; they will bring principles into contrast;
they will secretly attack, unsettle, overturn certain ridiculous opinions which one
would not dare to insult openly....There would be a great art and an infinte
advantage in these latter cross-references. The entire work would receive from
them an internal force and a secret utility, the silent effects of which would
necessarily be perceptible over time. Every time, for example, that a national
prejudice would merit some respect, its particular article ought to set it forth
respectfully, and with its whole retinue of plausibility and charm; but it also ought
to overturn this edifice of muck, disperse a vain pile of dust, by cross-referencing
articles in which solid principles serve as the basis for the contrary truths. This
means of undeceiving men operates very promptly on good minds, and it operates
infallibly and without any detrimental consequence–secretly and without scandal–
on all minds. It is the art of deducing tacitly the boldest consequences. If these
confirming and refuting cross-references are planned well in advance, and
prepared skillfully, they will give an encyclopedia the character which a good
dictionary ought to possess: this character is that of changing the common manner
of thinking.
– Denis Diderot, “Encyclopedia,” Encyclopedia

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914):
[Forbidden ideas] are different in different countries and in different ages; but wherever
you are, let it be known that you seriously hold a tabooed belief, and you may be
perfectly sure of being treated with a cruelty less brutal but more refined than hunting
you like a wolf. Thus the greatest intellectual benefactors of mankind have never dared,
and dare not now [in America, circa 1877], to utter the whole of their thought.
– Charles Sanders Pierce, “The Fixation of Belief,” Philosophical Writings, 20

What do we do with edge cases, such as plants or oysters? Do we assume some minimal intellect here or is it all sense? — Manuel

Is having a sense of something and making sense of something two different senses of sense?

What is the minimum requirement for minimal intellect?

Is intellect a property limited to individual organisms?

There is some interesting work being done on trees and communication networks.

Wittgenstein points to "seeing as" and "seeing aspects".

I was referring to human beings in that example. — Manuel

The question was raised about the connection between the senses and the intellect. Since Descartes denies that animals have intellect we should consider what he allows the senses alone can accomplish. In the passages I cite these are beliefs that come from the senses. Are the senses alone sufficient? Given the connection between mind and body, which he will discuss, perhaps the problem arises only in abstraction, when mind and body are artificially separated and not treated as a union.

the intellect too can deceive us — Manuel

As we see with Zeno and the denial of motion. Does this fall under logical formulations?

The issue I am highlighting is that it's not clear senses alone give us any knowledge, without an intellectual component. — Manuel

As I think you know, he will confirm this. This is, of course, a very old problem going back at least to Plato.

Descartes observation about what literally hits the eye — Manuel

His mechanistic view of optics allows that animals without mind can see, otherwise they would not be able to move around in the world.

Following his claim that:

Whatever I have accepted until now as most true has come to me through my senses.

he lists several things that come through the senses:

Yet although the senses sometimes deceive us about objects that are very small or distant, that doesn’t apply to my belief that I am here, sitting by the fire, wearing a winter dressing-gown, holding this piece of paper in my hands, and so on. It seems to be quite impossible to doubt beliefs like these, which come from the senses.

... the sky, the air, the earth, colours, shapes, sounds ... no hands or eyes, or flesh, or blood or senses ...

(First Meditation)

Well you seem to think you understand what I’m trying to say and just flatly disagree. — Antony Nickles

? When you say:

He is looking for a foundation in order to have the certainty he needs to conquer doubt. — Antony Nickles

I take it that is what you are saying.

this is uncalled for in this kind of forum. If you want to believe Descartes or Plato or Kant never made a mistake, feel free, but there is no cause to mock me. — Antony Nickles

First of all, he is a careful writer. Second, from that statement to claiming he never made a mistake is quite a leap. Third, if you think he made a mistake then either he did or you did.

I think it odd that you think that suggesting you rather than Descartes is lost is to mock you.

I meant we should not just take him to be making explicit everything we can learn. — Antony Nickles

Right, but does anyone?

He is looking for a foundation in order to have the certainty he needs to conquer doubt. — Antony Nickles

I don't think so.

You’re assuming he’s a reliable narrator. — Antony Nickles

It is because he is not a reliable narrator that I don't think that conquering doubt is as much a problem as you make it out to be.

As I pointed out on page one:

He took his motto from Ovid:

He who lived well hid himself well. (Bene qui latuit bene vixit) — Fooloso4

I also said:

Descartes dedication to the faculty of theology is both revealing and concealing. He tells them that once they understand the principle behind his undertaking they will protect it. This raises the question of what that principle is. — Fooloso4

The whole force of my argument has been that there is more here than meets the eye.

What he’s telling you he’s doing is not the whole picture. — Antony Nickles

That is right. Despite your claim, he has not said what the principle behind his undertaking is.

I’m analyzing how he gets lost along the way because of what he wants from it. — Antony Nickles

Descartes is a careful writer. He is a central figure in Western philosophy. He did not gain that reputation by getting lost. If someone is lost it is not him.

If we take philosophy literally and at face value, we are not putting it in contrast to the rest of the tradition, nor questioning why he has chosen this method, why he needs certainty. — Antony Nickles

You seem to be arguing that we should not take what he says literally, but you go on to object to the idea that there is a rhetorical aspect. From the beginning I have set his work both within and against the tradition. I have also said why he chose this method. Why does he need certainty? Because, as I also said, he is looking to established a foundation. If, as he said, he is to:

... establish anything in the sciences that was stable and likely to last ...

Now there are problems with the idea of foundationalism, but if we are to understand him, we should not begin by rejecting what he sets out to do.

The fact that Descartes “withdraws from the practical concerns of daily life” is not only the cause of the abstraction, — Antony Nickles

It is the deliberate act of abstraction. These meditations could not take place while dealing with the demands of life outside his closed room.

to be apart from our human life, its uncertainty. — Antony Nickles

It is not in order to be apart from uncertainty. It is just the opposite. It is done in order to give free rein to it.

So I do not take anything as “rhetorical” but take it seriously enough to attribute reasons for everything, implications, assumptions, motivations, blind spots, frameworks, analogies, etc. — Antony Nickles

These are not mutually exclusive alternatives. As Aristotle said, rhetoric is as counterpart to dialectic. They are closely related. It is rhetoric that takes into consideration assumptions, motivations, blind spots, frameworks, etc.

Good question. From the first meditation:

Whatever I have accepted until now as most true has come to me through my senses.

At PI 217 Wittgenstein says:

Once I have exhausted the justifications, I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: “This is simply what I do.”

His spade is not turned when he hits a proposition that is bedrock but when he has exhausted propositions used to justify his acting in this way when complying with a rule. He can go no further.

From On Certainty:

166. The difficulty is to realize the groundlessness of our believing.

And:

358. Now I would like to regard this certainty, not as something akin to hastiness or superficiality,
but as a form of life. (That is very badly expressed and probably badly thought as well.)
359. But that means I want to conceive it as something that lies beyond being justified or
unjustified; as it were, as something animal.

Most succinctly:

482. It is as if "I know" did not tolerate a metaphysical emphasis.

Rather than bedrock we should consider the river and its banks:

96. It might be imagined that some propositions, of the form of empirical propositions, were
hardened and functioned as channels for such empirical propositions as were not hardened but fluid;
and that this relation altered with time, in that fluid propositions hardened, and hard ones became
fluid.
97. The mythology may change back into a state of flux, the river-bed of thoughts may shift. But I
distinguish between the movement of the waters on the river-bed and the shift of the bed itself;
though there is not a sharp division of the one from the other.

Harth dropped the lawsuit right after Trump settled an outstanding business lawsuit from her partner. Weird how that happens. — NOS4A2

She dropped the lawsuit but stands by her accusations. If you read the article you cited you would know that.

Why aren’t you mentioning these things? — NOS4A2

As I said:

She backtracked in October of 2016. Just a big coincidence? — Fooloso4

Once again Trump and his lawyers resorted to his default position: he is the victim. In damage control mode she denied it was rape "in a literal or criminal sense" but also said:

As a woman, I felt violated ...

An important element that she mentioned is the children she had with him. Children who hold important positions in his business/charitable/political organization. Since he demands unquestionable loyalty but is incapable of being loyal she was protecting her children.

Look at the date of their accusations. October 2016. — NOS4A2

Yes, LOOK at the dates.

... his then-wife Ivana made a rape claim during their 1990 divorce litigation ...

She backtracked in October of 2016. Just a big coincidence?

Jill Harth

filed a lawsuit in 1997 in which she accused Trump of non-consensual groping of her body, among them her "intimate private parts"

As is typical, when others come forward those who thought they were alone speak out. You would do well to educate yourself on #MeToo. That 25 or more women accused Trump because he was a political target does not stand up to reason. Why Trump and not every political candidate? Your defense of Trump, trying to spin it as if he is the victim, is a callous disregard for the true victims of his abuse.

Hume's method is to portray reason as infallible — Metaphysician Undercover

Where does he portray reason as infallible?

All after he became a political target — NOS4A2

That is incorrect.

Why do you repeat his lies? Is it ignorance or blind loyalty?

He said; she said. — NOS4A2

As with Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby it's:
He said; she said. And she said, and she said, and she said ...

I am claiming he is externalizing that he is demonized (afraid), that his ability to have a clear path through our culture and customs is fraught. — Antony Nickles

I think you have mistaken a rhetorical device for something existential.

From the First Meditation:

I realized that if I wanted to establish anything in the sciences that was stable and likely to last, I needed – just once in my life – to demolish everything completely and start again from the foundations. It looked like an enormous task, and I decided to wait until I was old enough to be sure that there was nothing to be gained from putting it off any longer. I have now delayed it for so long that I have no excuse for going on planning to do it rather than getting to work. So today I have set all my worries aside and arranged for myself a clear stretch of free time. I am here quite alone, and at last I will devote myself, sincerely and without holding back, to demolishing my opinions.

It is a meditation, not a crisis of doubt. He has waited to do this meditation until he was able to set aside the time to withdraw from the practical concerns of daily life. It is in that sense a practice of abstraction.

The thing about Descartes, even Socrates, is that they do put the cart before the horse in wanting a specific type of knowledge ... — Antony Nickles

In my opinion, knowledge of our ignorance is the proper philosophical starting point. Descartes was more cautious than Socrates. But he was also more cautious than Galileo, who did know something of which the Church was ignorant.

How could Descartes claim that there are things the Church is ignorant of, thing the Church claimed that are doubtful and wrong? By doubting everything.

If they don't consent then yes. — Michael

I answered in the same way. Does he really not know this? Giving him the benefit of the doubt he is just being stubbornly argumentative. Otherwise ...

Now it is just a matter of who is more honest about it. — NOS4A2

Who is more honest about what? Many conservatives today want to or claim they want to dismantle the administrative state. The administrative state is comprised of a few in terms of the overall population but it is not comprised of only a few, it is quite large.

None of your straw-grasping can contend with the fact no evidence of any sexual assault or admission of any sexual assault occurred in the video. — NOS4A2

He admits to grabbing women by the pussy. Perhaps it is just boasting, but if so, thinking that this is something to boast about says a lot. The fact that he does not assault anyone in the video is evidence that he did not assault anyone in the video. Nothing more.

All sexual assault has been explicitly denied. — NOS4A2

He explicitly denies lots of things he is guilty of. One example from last night is his explicitly denying he did not ask for votes to be "found" in Georgia.

As for the jury selection it was an anonymous jury. — NOS4A2

Anonymous does not mean that there was no jury process.